The reason DA Form 5512 looks the way it does is that a file has to speak for itself. Officially RESPITE CARE AGREEMENT, it serves to respite care agreement, and the record it produces outlasts the people and the circumstances behind it. Edition 02/01/2026, status ACTIVE, is the version published here: 1 page(s), close to 63 fields, each one present because some later reader will need that fact without being able to ask for it. Because a subsequent edition has appeared, this copy stays available — a record made under one edition is interpreted under that edition.
Behind any Army form sit two separate decisions. What the document asks is settled by TSG, which maintains and revises it. Whether you raise it, and where it goes once signed, is settled by AR 608-75. That division is the reason a form can outlive several changes in the process it serves.
Retrieval governs the order of entry. The head of the form takes name, identification number, unit and date, and those values become the handles by which the record is found later — the substantive blocks are never searched on. This is why the spelling must match official records exactly rather than approximately.
Much of the form's behaviour follows from its being a fixed page. Tab order was set at build time along the reading sequence, which is why tabbing catches boxes a pointer passes over. Exclusive groups release one choice when another is made because a record cannot carry two answers to a single question. Single-line fields refuse to wrap because every entry must print where the layout expects it — text beyond the width is lost at the margin, visible on screen to the end. That is what remarks areas and continuation sheets are for. Marking a field that does not apply matters for a related reason: emptiness is ambiguous, and a reviewer reading the file later cannot distinguish an omission from a decision.
A signature is what converts entries into a record, which is why it comes last and why an unsigned form remains a draft however complete it looks. Where a reviewing official, an approving authority or a witness also signs, each adds a distinct attestation, and each dates the day of signing rather than the day of preparation — the dates trace the sequence of responsibility. The recurring defects are worth knowing precisely because they defeat that purpose: an empty mandatory field leaves an obligation unmet, transposed identification digits attach the record to nobody, a date with day and month reversed puts events in the wrong order, and entries left in a reused working copy assert facts nobody intended.
Behind the Privacy Act statement is a requirement that anyone asked for personal data be told, in advance, under what authority it is sought, for what purpose, who else routinely sees it, and whether refusal is possible. Reading it after completing the fields defeats its function. And the completed form is itself a personal record from that point on, subject to the handling rules such records carry.
Download the form
Why several files for one page? Because the form has to be completed in a headquarters and in places without a workstation, and PDF, XFDL covers both. The fillable pdf holds interactive fields that fix each entry in place and remove handwriting from the equation. The printable pdf is the same layout without those fields, meant for a printer and a pen. Neither is a lesser copy of the other; each answers a condition the other cannot.
Where a file opens matters more than it appears to. A browser will display a pdf, but browser viewers were built to read documents, and some accept keystrokes into fields they never intended to store — the entries are gone at tab close, without warning, because saving was never part of what that viewer does. A dedicated reader is built around the file's own structure and keeps what you enter. The xfdl file belongs to a different lineage entirely: IBM Lotus Forms, adopted across Army systems for the routing and signature handling built into it. That is why only the Lotus Forms Viewer reads it.
Downloads are free and unregistered. The material was published for general use, and the files are passed on unaltered.
What the form asks for
- ContentArea1
- DATE_A
- DATE_B
- Group1
- Group2
- NAME
- Page1
- R54
- R55
- R56
- R57
- R58
- Rectangle1
- SIGN_A
- SIGN_B
- T10
- T12
- T13
- T14
- T15
- T16
- T17
- T18
- T19
Where the signed form goes is settled by AR 608-75 rather than by the office holding it — a named recipient, the unit administrative channel, or the individual's own file, depending on why it was raised. Retention likewise belongs to the records schedule for the series, which exists so documents are kept for as long as anyone might need them and no longer. Keep a copy before release; the original serves the file from then on, not you.
Related documents are located by series and number, and the relation is rarely accidental — forms under one proponent or one directive tend to serve steps of a single procedure. Anything the DA series form names on its face normally travels with it, as do the continuations, covers and transmittals the process generates. Assembling them together is what makes the submission a complete account.
An edition marks the form at a point in a process that keeps moving, and the date printed on the page is what distinguishes one from another. Since a saved file never announces its own obsolescence, compare its date against the current edition before using it again. Prior executions remain valid: the change applies forward, and a record is read against the edition it was written under.
It is worth being plain about what this page is within all of the above. The files are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, offered for download by a site with no official standing and no part in issuing anything. That matters because the machinery described here — proponency, prescribing directives, records schedules — runs entirely elsewhere. Nothing written here is legal advice, and no statement can be made about whether an office will accept a given document. TSG and the administrative office servicing your unit answer questions of entry, requirement and eligibility, and they are the ones positioned to.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 5512?
- RESPITE CARE AGREEMENT
- Which edition is current?
- 02/01/2026
- Who is responsible for this form?
- TSG
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF